Ulrich Boser, author of "Learn Better" and "The Leap", discusses the latest research on the science of learning strategies and reveals how you can help your teen to adopt proven study techniques for accelerating academic performance with less effort.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesWhen a teenager is constantly getting bad grades or failing to grasp course material, it’s hard to watch as a parent. It’s difficult to see them struggle to learn as well or as fast as their peers. We especially don’t want our kids to fall behind or get discouraged. Poor learning skills in the teen years can negatively impact grades, but failing to improve those skills can lead to greater disadvantages further into adulthood. This is why learning strategies for teens are so important! We want our kids to be happy, well-adjusted members of society, not those struggling to keep up.Luckily, there are tried and true learning strategies for teens that can guide our kids towards being more effective learners. Our guest today is Ulrich Boser, the author of the book Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, Or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything. In the episode, Ulrich shines light on common misconceptions most people have about learning and several great learning strategies for teens we can use today.Ulrich writes from the heart, as the inspiration for the book came from his own childhood. He struggled a lot in school, as he needed to repeat kindergarten and was placed into special education classes. Due to his difficulty keeping up with class, he always assumed he was going to be less successful than the classmates who excelled beyond him. However, as he began thinking critically about the process of learning itself, he discovered how he could become much more capable of retaining knowledge. He took his ideas about learning strategies for teens and put them into the book.Ulrich describes a serious problem we have in today’s education system. He says we tend to sort people into two categories: good learners and bad learners. We shouldn’t be doing this, however, as research shows that we all have pretty much the same learning abilities. Rather than labeling them as unintelligent, we should be providing individualized learning strategies for teens who struggle in school.One of the many learning strategies for teens that we discuss is the importance of physical learning. For example, we can greatly benefit from using hand motions to remember pieces of information. Although it may look peculiar, try helping your teen create a tapping motion that goes along with the information they are expected to memorize. Then, have them perform that same hand motion while being tested. This surprising technique can help them recall information much faster and with more accuracy.Quizzing is another one of the effective learning strategies for teens I loved hearing about during this interview! Quizzing means testing your teen on the material they are learning. This is already a popular technique, so it’s good to know that it’s actually helpful. In fact, Ulrich says it’s one of the most effective techniques you can use! Even better, says Ulrich, is having teens repeat ideas to themselves without notes. If you can recall the information at hand without any reference, you will be more successful in remembering it for the long term.Practicing new learning strategies doesn’t mean your teen isn’t smart already. Instead, it shows that they are dedicated to learning and adapting, even when things are challenging. Albert Einstein, one of the most brilliant men in history, struggled with basic tasks like tying his shoes and telling time. He had to learn certain strategies to adapt, and it was likely the development of those strategies that helped him become the brilliant innovator we all know. By researching and understanding learning strategies for teens, our kids can be just as brilliant as Einstein!When it comes to learning strategies for teens, it’s good for them to distribute their learning over long periods of time, as Ulrich notes. As we’ve been told over and over, cramming for tests doesn’t work. If they try to learn everything in one night, their brains will simply not retain the information very well. Instead, by spreading out their studying over long periods of time, they can give their learning a boost.Speaking of long term planning, Ulrich and I discuss how planning and goal setting can be helpful learning strategies for teens. This is especially true for teenagers in the modern day who have to juggle more than just school. Most teens are also involved in sports, extracurriculars, college applications, social media, complicated social circles, or a million other things. Ulrich speaks on the idea that if they’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, teens simply don’t learn as well. By planning and setting specific deadlines for themselves, they can help section out their responsibilities so we’re not exhausted.Along with sharing strategies for success, Ulrich also debunks common learning strategies that don’t work as well as we think they do. For example, Ulrich mentions research on reading has shown that highlighting certain phrases doesn’t help our brains retain information. The widely-accepted theory of learning styles (visual, written, or auditory), is also not scientifically accurate. These are very common misconceptions, and it’s important to learn that they are not effective learning strategies for teens. Instead, focus on quizzing, physical learning, and other scientifically-backed methods Ulrich shares in our conversation.Ulrich says that our behaviors as parents have a significant influence on our teen’s behaviors through a psychological process called “modeling.” Modeling means, if we exhibit good learning strategies, our teens will do the same. For example, research shows that parents who are math anxious--meaning doing math makes them uncomfortable to the point where they avoid it--are likely to pass the same tendency onto their children.Additionally, Ulrich encourages parents to share their own experience of struggling with learning to help kids contextualize and understand their own difficulties. If you can talk to them about what you’ve been through, they won’t feel so embarrassed or discouraged about their own struggles. Maybe you’ve always found writing essays particularly hard, but because it was difficult for you, you adapted and learned new strategies. By sharing this breakthrough with your teenager, you might help them adapt for their own situation.Also in this episode, we discuss:Other methods of learning that are surprisingly effective, such as using analogies and talking to yourselfWhy it’s positive to “think about thinking”How to ensure that our teenagers will do the right thing, even when no one is watchingWhat my brother has learned about education from running a tutoring company How receiving or providing tutoring can help your childrenHow to gain back the trust of a teenager once it’s been brokenHow technology plays a role in learningThese ideas about learning and other learning strategies for teens are discussed in tod...

Chris Smith, bestselling author of The Conversion Code, reveals a step-by-step formula for how to get kids to listen to you and follow your rules. Learn how to deal with teenagers and use Pattern Interrupt statements. Getting kids to listen to you is easy when you know this.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesDo you ever have trouble getting kids to listen to you and do what you ask? You’re not alone. Getting kids to listen is the most common problems parents have when they find this website.The problem is that teenagers stop listening to you because they want a good reason to do something besides “I’m your parent.” According to neuroscience, they want to know how doing their chores or studying hard can benefit them. The “I’m counting to three” method of parenting becomes completely useless unless you back it up with some extremely heavy consequences. But that just backfires and creates resentment from your teen.That’s why this week’s episode of the podcast is all about getting kids to listen to you and follow through with action. The secret to dealing with teenagers who don’t respect your authority?Sell them on you want them to doTo discover the secret to getting kids to listen, I spoke with Chris Smith and worked through a step-by-step plan that will teach you all about getting kids to listen. Chris is the bestselling author of The Conversion Code, and the Co-Founder of Curaytor, which is one of the fastest-growing companies in America. He’s an expert at selling products over the phone and he’s trained thousands of salespeople around the world how to adopt his pitch.In this episode, we go through an in-depth, step-by-step example of how to deal with teenagers who don’t want to clean their room. After tuning in, you’ll be able to use some of Chris’ actual word-for-word dialogue he’s used with his own daughter to taker her responsibilities seriously. But to use his method correctly, you’ll need to know how it works. According to Chris, getting kids to listen breaks down into a four-step strategy:Starting with a “Pattern Interrupt” StatementFinding Something Your Child WantsUsing the “Five Yes” TechniqueFollowing up with a “Feature-Benefit Tie-Down”You can apply these principles of getting kids to listen to any behavior you want your teen to start doing. According to Chris, the idea isn’t so much a script as it is a framework for productive conversations. You don’t want to command your teen, but rather get them to understand and eventually act from your perspective. While you’ll have to tune in to the whole podcast to hear the extent of Chris’ strategy, here’s just a peek into how it works:Establishing AuthorityThe first step of getting kids to listen is a bit sneaky. It’s a sales technique that Chris calls the Pattern Interrupt statement, which involves establishing authority early on in the conversation through small, innocuous commands. For example, you can start a conversation by saying, “I want to talk to you about something. Bring your phone with you to take some notes.” The small command of “bring your phone” puts your child’s mind on track to be more receptive to directives.The key to getting kids to listen by using Pattern Interruption is subtlety. You want to give your teen a small order to follow so it doesn’t seem burdensome, but you’re still opening your teen up to be more agreeable. Given a minor objective, like “Turn off the lights in your room before coming downstairs” or “Can you pull up your calendar,” your teen is prepped to collaborate without even knowing it.Chris also recommends starting with a Pattern Interrupt statement because it demonstrates that you are the authority in the conversation. You want to be able to set the tone of the conversation early on, and giving your teenager something to do is an innocuous way of getting kids to listen and letting them know that there’s more to come.Digging Deep to Find IncentivesGetting kids to listen is important if you want them to adopt your goals while also pursuing their own accomplishments. To do this, parents need to use a technique called Digging Deep. Digging deep means investigating the details of what your teen wants to do and using their reasoning to support your own goals. The idea is that if you’re going to help someone get what they want, you have to know what it is. To do this, Chris says you need to identify what your child cares most about so you can leverage their desire to meet your goals as a parent.Aside from getting kids to listen to you, your goal is to turn your kids into responsible adults who want their own rooms to be clean instead of reminding them to do their chores all the time. So, if you can dig deep and find reasons to take out the trash that benefit your teen, you can sell them on this idea of personal responsibility.Let’s say your teen wants to go to the movies but you want them to clean their room. How do you align the two goals? First, you need information about the event that you can use to build a link. Chris says that most parents stop investigating after asking their kids, “What are you going to do this weekend?” But when you stop asking questions, you’re losing out on valuable information that can help you better understand what your teen wants.Are they going out with friends? Why does your teenager want to hang out with this group? When you dig deep and ask questions like “when, where, why, and who,” you might find that your child wants to fit in more at school and have something to talk about with their friends next week. They want the social experience of feeling accepted.Once you have a better understanding of the situation, you can tell your child that after the movies, their friends won’t want to come over if their room is dirty and gross. Now they see that having a clean room benefits them in the long run. By digging deep and pairing your child’s desires with responsible practices, you’re preparing your child for adulthood. Because without realizing it, they’re building in good habits that they might thank you for later on down the road.The Five YessesOnce you’ve listened to your teen and dug deep to figure out your child’s incentives, it’s time to use the Five Yesses Strategy. This works by putting the information you’ve gathered into a list along with some of your own objectives, like taking out the trash or washing the car. Then, you repeat the list of your shared goals back to your teen with affirmative statements. Here’s what that exchange might look like:Parent: You want to go to the movies, right?Teen: Yes.Parent: And it’s for this PG-13 movie?Teen: Yeah.Parent: Got it. And you want your three friends to go with you?Teen: Yup!Parent: And you want to go this weekend, right?Teen: Yes.Parent: So, you know that means you have to vacuum the living room before Friday in order to go, right?Teen: YES!Parent: Okay, that sounds like a plan.The genius behind the Five Yesses technique is that you’re building a compromise into the conversation without it feeling like a ...

Annie Fox, an online adviser to thousands of teens and the author of 12 books including "Teaching Kids to be Good People", reveals the best ways to give teens advice when they need some guidance. Learn how to give teens advice they will actually listen to with these great tips from a true master.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesWhy Your Teen Doesn’t Talk to YouWatching your kid become a teenager can be a very awkward and strange experience––their hormones have kicked in, they’ve grown a foot out of nowhere, they’re suddenly so moody. Their social groups are shifting and they’re spending less time with the family. And whether they want to talk to you about it or not, you probably notice their increased interest in boys, girls, or both. What would make this experience slightly less awkward is if they’d just talk to you about all the changes they are going through. But getting them to actually do this can be like pulling teeth.Regardless of whether your kid is going through good or bad times, as a parent you always want your advice for youngsters to be helpful and effective. But how will you get the chance to do this? For starters, teenagers don't ask for advice all that often. On one hand because it’s natural for teens to want to forge their own path and find solutions of their own. But on the other hand, you might just be driving them away. Though this is hard to admit, it’s extremely common with parents of teenagers. Maybe they don’t want advice from you because when they ask, you talk way too much. Or your advice isn’t age appropriate. Or because of the time when they asked “Should I break up with my girlfriend?” and you said “No” because of the amazing Christmas gift their girlfriend gave you last year.Parents need to make the most of these rare occurrences to offer advice for youngsters. If you’re wondering what to say when they finally ask for help, and how to get them to ask more often, you’re listening to the right podcast. On this week’s episode, I got some advice for youngsters from Annie Fox. She's the author of 12 books including Teaching Kids to Be Good People, The Girl's Q&A Book on Friendship, and the Middle School Confidential series. Annie has maintained an anonymous advice column for teenagers since the late 90’s where she’s answered thousands and thousands of online questions from teens all over the world. Needless to say, Annie’s a pro on giving advice for youngsters and has uncovered some amazing tactics that we discuss in this interview.Being the Cool MomWe start the podcast by talking about how Annie first began sharing advice for youngsters online. She tells the amazing story of how a dream she had brought her the idea to create one of the first online forums for teens. Annie was always the cool mom that her kid’s friends would go to with their problems. They felt comfortable around her––and from this interview you can see why. Annie is gifted at actively listening to people and making them feel understood. So when an opportunity presented itself to create a website where teens could anonymously ask questions and she could provide advice for youngsters, Annie had the foresight to see that this could turn into something big.The initial website that Annie developed, which was originally called The Insite, was a series of chat rooms where teens could talk to counselors who specialized in teen issues. Annie also served as an advice columnist of sorts; she had an alter ego named Terra that teens could send anonymous questions to. Though there was no marketing for the website prior to it’s launch, Annie was getting numerous questions sent to her everyday from the start. The website, now called Hey Terra!, still offers advice for youngsters today with the same mission as it had in the beginning: to help youth effectively manage their relationships and emotions so they can feel confident in who they are.Listen More, Talk LessPossibly the most shocking thing about Annie and her approach to advice for youngsters is this: she doesn't tell the teens what to do in her responses. This might be confusing to you as a parent because isn’t telling your teen what to do the whole point of giving advice? Not exactly. Most of the time, teens already know what the right thing to do deep down. They aren't looking for a lecture, just someone to listen to them and help them work out the best way to do what their heart is telling them.When providing advice for youngsters, your ultimate goal should be to teach your teens how to manage their own emotions. To do this, Annie encourages parents to put themselves into the mindstate of their teen. Really focus on empathizing with them in the specific situation that’s causing them pain. As an adult, it’s easy to dismiss teen drama and think that whatever they’re going through this week will be forgotten the next. While this may be true, the overflow of emotions that make up a teenagers brain chemistry is what’s actually causing them to react so dramatically. For as long as you’ll have teenage kids, teen brains will always work like this. So if you really want to know the right advice for youngsters, you first need to acknowledge that what’s important is not the problem your teen is having but the way the problem makes them feel.After listening to how your teen expresses a problem to you, Annie suggests saying things like “sounds like you’re really upset” or “that must be very frustrating for you.” This is an effective first step to providing advice for youngsters because you are acknowledging their feelings off the bat. Often when you give your opinion on a teen’s situation right away, you neglect to see that what your teen actually wants is validation. In more cases that not, Annie finds that teens looking for advice already have a solution, they just want someone to confirm that it’s the right one.Throughout the interview, Annie always comes back to the idea that parents should listen more and talk less. As a parent, you should be guiding your teen towards making the right choice, not choosing for them. Annie elaborates on how your role in offering advice for youngsters is to provide reinforcement for what they already know. To hear more about how you can offer suggestions to your teen without overstepping, tune into the episode.Pay Attention!Annie reminds parents that though you may struggle to get your teen’s attention, teens might feel the same way about you sometimes. Your teen can tell when you’re distracted and aren’t fully listening to them. Maybe there’s a hectic situation going on at the office and you’re still in work mode. Maybe you’re really mad at your spouse but don’t want your kid to know about it. Annie reminds you to try your hardest to not let these distractions prevent you from opportunities to connect with your teens. Focus on eye contact and let them know that feed...

Paul Smith is the author of three books: Parenting with a Story, Lead with a Story, and Sell with a Story. On this episode, he reveals how to tell teens stories that teach them important lessons about life. He also shares a few of his favorite parenting stories that you can steal and tell to your own kids.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesNot Another Boring Story...“Let me tell you how I learned the value of a dollar.” Does this sound like the beginning of a riveting story? No! It sounds like a long, boring charade that your grandfather will go on about for 45 minutes while you pretend to listen. Hopefully you won’t have to remember specific details later because there’s no way you took anything away from this one-sided conversation. Why don’t people realize that their tedious recollections are not an effective way of teaching teens lessons using stories?Have you considered that your kid might feel this way every time you try teaching teens lessons using stories? Surely this isn’t the case, right? At least some stories from your youth you’ve told to your teen have left an impression on them. They have to know that you lived a full life before they were born and that there’s plenty of wisdom for you to pass on to them. But to be frank, it’s probably only the crazy stories — like the time you drove your mom’s station wagon through your neighbor’s yard — that they actually remember.Teaching teens lessons using stories can help them learn how to deal with the struggles that come with growing up — should they choose to listen. That being said, what’s the best way to tell stories that’ll have a lasting impression on them and not just be ignored? In this interview, we ask one of Ink Magazine’s “Top 100 Leadership Speakers of 2018.”Paul Smith is the author of three books on storytelling, Lead with a Story, Parenting with a Story, and most recently, Sell with a Story. He has interviewed hundreds of successful people all over the world and collected the most impactful stories from their lives. In this episode, Smith discusses how teaching teens lessons using stories can be achieved by sharing your experiences, as well as those passed on from friends and family, in a way that is impactful and interesting to your teen.Crafting the Perfect StoryBefore becoming an author, Smith spent much of his time listening to renowned leaders tell stories about how to inspire, motivate, or instruct others in the workplace. He closely studied the methods discussed in these stories, finding out what did and didn’t work. Smith then set out to write a book about how these stories can be used to teach leadership in the workplace. However, after interviewing hundreds of successful people all over the world, he realized that many of the findings he collected could also be used for teaching teens lessons using stories. That inspired him to write his second publication, Parenting with a Story.As a parent you might be racking your brain for stories that will be applicable to your teens life. Sure you’ve had a few wild experiences (and some you don’t ever want your kid to know) but for the most part, you might have a hard time teaching teens lessons using stories because you can’t seem to find any stories that will be interesting and relatable to them. Smith acknowledges that because their upbringing is a generation removed from their teen, many parents worry that their stories will come off as mundane or out of touch.Smith insists that teaching teens lessons using stories is all about drawing the right types of stories out of people. He found that oftentimes people don’t think of experiences they’ve had in their life as stories unless their brain connects it with a specific value or lesson they learned. Smith realized that he was able to find better stories when he asked people to tell him something interesting or surprising that’s happened to them. Smith recommends that parents think about how surprising things you’ve experienced ended up impacting your life in a bigger way than expected. For example, maybe when you met your spouse you initially thought they were pretentious and obnoxious. But somehow you came around to liking and eventually marrying them. Funny stories like this will make your kid laugh and can also teach them how first impressions aren’t always accurate.In this interview, Smith offers many other tips for teaching teens lessons using stories including how to structure your story in an intriguing way. He states that not all stories should be told chronologically because sometimes the most interesting part happens in the very beginning. Human brains are wired to remember things better when there's a surprise or twist at the end. Think about it, wouldn’t you enjoy a story more if you didn’t know what would happen next?Smith shares an anecdote he often uses for teaching teens lessons using stories. It’s about a young boy who, much to his mother’s frustration, spends all his time in the kitchen watching his kettle boil water and release steam. It’s not until the end of this story that he reveals it’s actually about James Watt, the man who would go on to invent the steam engine. Smith points out that what makes this story memorable is that he didn’t initially tell you who this story was about — the twist ending is what really sticks with you. Of course you might not have a remarkable story like this, but that doesn’t mean you can’t craft one of your own experiences into something just as intriguing. The key is to find the most surprising part, like how you won $1,000 on a gameshow you went on in High School, and save it for the end to really pack a punch.Drawing their Own ConclusionsEffectively teaching teens lessons using stories, you have to let the teenager discover the answer for themself. Once you’ve hooked them in with a cleverly crafted story, ask them what their takeaways were. You may be hoping it’s something specific like, “parents always know best” or “treat people the way you want to be treated,” but Smith insists that you need let them come to their own conclusion. Teen’s have a high need for autonomy and when their parents tell them what to take away from the story, they often feel compelled to do the exact opposite.A common misconception of teaching teens lessons using stories is that it’s about giving advice to your teens. But the truth is, they don't really want your advice. Teenagers often feel misunderstood, and as a parent, you’re only making matters worse if you use storytelling as an opportunity to force your beliefs onto them.What teens actually want is for you to listen to them and value their opinion. By using Smith’s tips on crafting a good story, you can present them with an interesting, applicable, and concise tale that paves the way for them to open up to you. When you are done telling the st...

Dina Alexander, the president of Educate Empower Kids and the author of numerous parenting books, explains how to talk to teenagers about porn and sex, including how to start conversations, what to do if you find porn on your family computer, and what topics to cover with every teen.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesIt might be every parent’s worst nightmare.You finally get some down time, and you want to resume watching the highlights to last night’s game, or your favorite sitcom rerun. You pull up the web browser on the shared, family iPad, and you see it. Right there in the search history. Unmistakable.“Naked ladies”The time has come, and there’s no way around it. You must now have “The Talk” with your kid. Tell all your friends to wish you luck.Talking to teens about sex is one of the most common reasons parents come to us looking for help. But why is this conversation so awkward? Sex is supposed to be a positive thing! You should be free to talk about it with your kid, but the fears are common and understandable.“What if I put an idea in their head and they begin experimenting on their own?”“What if they ask questions about my sex life I don’t want to answer?”“What if talking about it makes them too curious, and gets them in trouble?”These are valid and important questions, and you are not alone if you are asking them. So to help get some quality answers and learn some best practices when talking to teens about sex, I spoke with the amazing, Dina Alexander.Dina is the founder and CEO of Educate and Empower Kids (EEK), and she has been teaching in various capacities for over 20 years. She created programs like How to Talk to Your Kids About Pornography and 30 Days of Sex Talks to help parents have positive, informed conversations about sex and pornography with their kids.The Dangers of SilenceDina founded EEK after reading an article about teenage porn consumption. The numbers in the article seemed too overwhelming to be true. But sure enough, when she did her own research to verify what she saw, she came to the following realization:“There is going to be no one left for my daughter to date who won’t have been highly influenced by, or addicted to, porn.”The scope of the sex industry is hard to fathom, but the dangers it produces for teenagers cannot be ignored. Porn does not teach a positive view of sex. Dina says that parents will have their own beliefs about defining positive sex. However you define positive sex, though, it’s unlikely that porn is accurately representing your beliefs.Porn teaches a dominant and submissive understanding of sex. As Dina puts it, porn shows teens extreme and unrealistic displays of sexual gymnastics. The problem is that teens don’t understand that what they’re seeing is unrealistic! They are not watching an intimate relationship when they watch porn!Talking to teens about sex is even scarier when you consider how sensitive a developing teenage brain is to visual imagery. During the teen years, the rapid growth of neural pathways latch on to visual media like TV shows, movies, and pornographic images. Heavy porn consumption normalizes the neural pathways that says “porn is how sex happens.” And the risk of your teen falling into heavy porn consumption without guidance is sadly high.Dina says that Pornhub’s statistics on total time spent watching porn on their site last year added up to about 500 CENTURIES!!!This is why talking to teens about sex is something Dina is so fired up to teach to parents. Let’s hear what she has to say:More Than Just One TalkFirst off, Dina says that the idea of “The Talk” just doesn’t work. It’s unfair to assume that you can have one conversation with your kids and they will suddenly understand all your values behind sex. Instead, Dina wants parents to realize that talking to teens about sex means regularly taking the time to normalize the topic of sex in your conversations.Dina’s programs suggest 30 days of talking to teens about sex in short segments. Depending on your values around sex and the context between you and your teen, you can go through these chats in any order. The idea is to normalize conversation about sex with your teen. If your teen can’t come to you with their questions about sex, then where else would they go for answers other than the phone in their pocket?Sure, they’ll have a class about it at school, and maybe your church will hold a “purity retreat,” but teens will always have more questions. Dina believes that the home should be the safest place for their questions. If parents aren’t talking to teens about sex, then it’s fair to assume that teens are getting their questions answered elsewhere.It’s About A RelationshipOdds are, your teenager is going to be exposed to pornography. Talking to teens about sex before this exposure gives you a chance to establish what healthy sex looks like. Having these talks can be scary, but Dina assures that there are a lot of preliminary talks you can have to set up the tougher topics.In most cases, the first conversation you have with your kid is not going to be about porn. It might not even be about sex! Depending on what your values as parents are, the first conversation you have might be, “How do you know who the right person is?” Or, “What does a healthy relationship look like?”Dina is quick to point out that talking to teens about sex is not all about the organs. You’ll get to that, but there are a lot of rules and boundaries you can discuss beforehand. Teens will learn all about STDs and unwanted pregnancies in sex-ed at school. At home, you can frame sex as a positive, healthy subject to talk about.Dina says that nothing gets a teenager’s attention more than their parents being brave and talking about their mistakes. By showing vulnerability as you talk, you can have a lasting positive impact on your relationship. Sharing your past mistakes while talking to teens about sex gets the teens to think about what mistakes they might be making.Vulnerability opens the door for your teens to ask you more questions. These might be tough questions, but you want your teen to trust you with their tough questions!Teens and Their QuestionsWhen your teen feels like they can talk more openly about sex with you, they might ask you a “test” question to see what kind of response you will give. For example, you might be asked:“Hey, what if someone sends me a nude picture?”Depending on your answer to that question, they might then feel safe to ask their real question:“Hey, how do I get someone to delete a nude picture of me?”You won’t always know when a question is a “test” question. This is why Dina encourages parents to always respo...

Biz Ellis, the host of the "One Bad Mother", reveals how she found her inner badass as a parent and learned how to be cool again through her kids' eyes. She also points out a number of ways in which you are probably already doing a great job and should give yourself a pat on the back.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesThe “Uncool” ParentTeens are really good at letting parents know how completely and utterly uncool we are at every chance they get. And if that’s not enough, the media does a great job at exaggerating our uncoolness. Pretty much all the characters we see in movies and TV, like Phil Dunphy on Modern Family and Amy Polar in Mean Girls, are stereotyped as out of touch with their teenagers and clueless about popular culture and modern technology. While these stereotypes are largely exaggerated, it’s not a stretch to say that most parents wouldn’t put coolness at the top of their skills list.As a parent it can be easy to feel beat down and exhausted when your teen scoffs at every out of date reference you make. But what your teen doesn’t realize is that unlike them, parents simply don’t have time to keep up with the latest trends. You’re the one picking them up and driving them from place to place, preparing their meals, keeping the house clean, making sure they stay on top of their homework — all while trying to have some sense of what’s going on in their social life. It can be near impossible to simultaneously figure out the ever-changing world of technology and listen to the music they think is cool. The list of requirements for maintaining coolness and mastering the art of parenting like a badass is something you don’t seem to have time for — there’s already an endless to-do list many parents have barely scratched the surface of.Maybe you’ve accepted that your teen is never going to think you’re cool. In the grand scheme of things, you know “coolness” is not so important, yet you’re sick of hearing, “You don’t know who [insert popular singer/actor here] is?” It’s like you and your teen speak a different language and unfortunately, they don’t sell teen-to-parent translators on Amazon yet.Somewhere in the process of raising kids, many parents have lost touch with their inner badass. Any speck of “badassery” you once had has been sacrificed for the sake of being a responsible parent. So how do you go about parenting like a badass and regaining the dignity you once had prior to having kids?This week’s podcast guest, Biz Ellis, has the answer. She is the co-host of popular podcast One Bad Mother and author of the book, You’re Doing a Great Job- 100 Ways You’re Winning at Parenting. Biz experienced a "parent identity crisis" when she realized that after becoming a mother, she no longer felt cool. After a process of self-discovery and finding inspiration in a t-shirt her husband made that said "One Bad Mother," she found her inner parenting badass. In this episode Biz tells her story and reveals insights into parenting like a badass, a skill she has mastered by hosting over 200 episodes of one of the most popular parenting podcasts on the planetFinding Your Inner BadassBefore having kids, Biz thought she had it all — she lived in Brooklyn, did sketch comedy, and went to clubs every weekend. She thought of herself as being pretty cool — until she went on maternity leave for her first child. Then, when people would ask what she did for a living, Biz would feel ashamed to say she was a stay-at-home mom. She felt that many of the labels or identities given to mothers––like Soccer Mom—were inherently uncool. She realized that maintaining the same coolness she once had was a lot less effortless than expected. Transitioning into parenting like a badass was going to take soul searching.Though Biz longed for the coolness she felt prior to motherhood, she soon realized that wanting to return to your “old self” is a toxic idea. It’s unrealistic to expect things like your pre-kid social life and pre-kid body to remain the same once you’ve had children. But instead of denying this and yearning for a time that you’ll never get back, Biz suggests focusing on all you’ve gained from becoming a parent. Everything you’ve sacrificed has paved the way for you to become a better, tougher, and wiser person with a beautiful child to show for it. For Biz, forgetting the past and moving forward was the first step to parenting like a badass.Biz reveals that the next hurdle to parenting like a badass is feeling like life is constantly passing you by. One day you’re teaching your baby to walk and before you know it, that baby is a teenager embarking on their first day of high school. As lame as it may be to your teens, it’s hard to keep composure when you think about the days when they needed your help to cross the street or tie their shoes. Now that they’ve grown up and become more independent they need you less and less—which is quite honestly the most devastating yet rewarding part of parenthood.Biz understands that parenting like a badass is easier said than done. It’s hard to be the cool, laissez-faire parent your teen wants you to be when you’ve gotten so used to making decisions for them. Your teen craves independence and may take any parental attempt to correct their behavior as you babying them. In this episode, Biz discusses how to face conflicting feelings that moments like these bring about with understanding rather than avoidance.That Damn To-Do List!Badassness is usually marked by not playing by the rules. One rule Biz thinks parents should avoid is living life by your to-do list. While these lists can be helpful at times, it’s important to question whether they’re preventing you from parenting like a badass. Are they helping you accomplish things or are they making you focus too much on what you aren’t accomplishing? Biz firmly believes that parents need to give themselves a break. She says that as a parent, you’re often overly fixated on the things you’re doing wrong and fail to notice all the ways you’re Winning at Parenting.Rather than feeling bad for not finishing everything on your to-do list, celebrate what you have accomplished. Biz reminds parents that though most of the things you achieve in a day aren’t list-worthy, they’re still worth praising. You’re such a master at parenting like a badass that you didn’t even need help remembering them! Biz reminds parents that small, but important, accomplishments like finishing three loads of laundry or getting both your kids to and from practice are what make you a badass.“It’s Just Cake” MentalityBiz recognizes that pressures to be like other parents can prevent you from parenting like a badass. For example, you may think that because another parent shows up for an event dressed to the nines or goes all out for their kids birthday party, they are judging you for not doing the same. Biz provides the example of a parent...

Robert J. Meyers, the author of "Getting Your Loved One Sober", explores strategies that parents can use to get teenagers to stop using drugs and alcohol. Instead of blaming and shaming teenagers, Meyers' research-based approach involves loving and accepting your teen.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesWhen our teenagers develop bad habits, it can feel like they’re slipping out of our control. You might worry about your teen getting into trouble, hanging out with the wrong crowd, and doing something or don’t approve of. All of a sudden, you’re hearing them come home late at night, having no idea where they went or who they were with.It seems as though even if we beg, scream, and plead, kids won’t let up on potentially dangerous behavior. Repeatedly, we punish them, try strategies to prevent underage drinking, give ultimatums, and say that we don’t like what they’re doing—but none of it seems to work. It’s easy to get frustrated and confused when your child just won’t listen, won’t change, won’t accept help.That’s why we need a new method of addressing our teenager’s upsetting habits. Luckily, today’s episode is jam packed with information about better ways to talk to your teenager and strategies to prevent underage drinking. Today’s guest is Dr. Robert J. Meyers, author of Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening. His book shines light on effective techniques to help your loved ones develop healthy habits that go beyond simple scolding.Dr. Meyers has been working since 1976 on developing a set of principles known as CRAFT- Community Reinforcement Approach Family Therapy. CRAFT coaches individuals how to help their spouses, children, or friends who struggle with addiction accept treatment and make lasting progress.However, his ideas have applications far beyond helping those with serious addiction problems and it is so relevant for parents of teenagers, especially those looking for strategies to prevent underage drinking.CRAFT’s central components of positivity and encouragement and its practical methods for creating healthier individuals can help parents and teens everywhere. As CRAFT is a community-and-family-based approach, Dr. Meyers focuses on how a family member can help a troubled teenager in this insightful interview.It Starts With You, A ParentWhen it comes to strategies to prevent underage drinking, Dr. Meyers says it’s critical that parents don’t blame themselves for their child’s choices. Harboring negative thoughts about yourself as a parent or failing to come to terms with the situation are not good strategies to prevent underage drinking. In CRAFT, easing this pain and sadness is the first part of guiding a teenager to recovery. In this way, a parent who is struggling should heal themselves first so they have an easier time helping their teenager heal. It’s like what they say before flights, “In the event that we lose cabin pressure, put on your own oxygen mask before you help your children.”That’s why Dr. Meyers underscores the importance of focusing on your own happiness first! You don’t have to feel guilty about this, because it actually helps your child. By bringing more joy into your own life, you can help your teenager be more positive as well. CRAFT is all about positivity. It aims to escape the constant cycle of nagging, arguing, yelling and punishing that we sometimes fall into when we’re trying strategies to prevent underage drinkingSeeking AlternativesAccording to Dr. Meyers, one of the first steps is to help your teenager become less dependent on substances or other addictive things is to figure out the root of the problem. He suggests starting by mapping out your child’s concerning practices, and finding the source of their troubling behavior. That’s why CRAFT focuses largely on mental health. If we can help teenagers live happier lifestyles, we can stop them from engaging in risky antics and find strategies to prevent underage drinking.Surprisingly, for a lot of American teenagers, a common cause of substance abuse or risky behavioral tendencies is more commonplace than you might imagine:BoredomIn order to find strategies to prevent underage drinking, Meyers urges parents to find alternatives to their teen’s risky behaviors. The idea is to put negative emotions to rest by helping teens finding something other than substances to make them feel good. This includes anything besides drugs, alcohol, or whatever other dangerous behavior they’ve been indulging in. It could be painting, playing outdoors, or gaming with friends, as long as it is something they can naturally enjoy in moderation.Meyers says we can start by doing research, finding a list of activities and things to do locally. Write them down, and go over them with your child. Then, help your teenager acquire the means to do that activity, whether it’s getting them the funds or the transportation.If we can help them get invested in activities aside from drugs and find new passions, we can help them get on the track to sobriety or even start them on a career path. If they like computer games, encourage them to learn more about how those games are made. Perhaps their love for playing games can turn into a passion for computer programming! Finding a passion to pursue or a new “healthy obsession” are strategies to prevent underage drinking that you might use at home. As Dr. Meyers says, no one gives up drinking for nothing. As a parent, your encouragement of their passion can help your child visualize a bright future that’s theirs for the taking.CRAFT Can Work to Prevent RelapseSometimes our teenagers can show progress, only to return to their problematic ways. Dr. Meyers reminds us in the episode that the most common cause of relapse is negative emotional state. Therefore, if we can help our teenagers find these activities that make them permanently happy, we’ll help them form a lasting resistance to dangerous habits.By practicing this CRAFT technique and more, we can help even the most at-risk teenager improve and work towards progress. Although helping your teenager heal might feel like an impossible journey, don’t give up! There are so many strategies to prevent underage drinking besides harsh words and punishments.Overall, it’s showing you care that matters most. If your loved one feels that you care for them, they’ll have a reason to want to get better. If you take the time to understand the reasons behind their behavior and make an effort to communicate and reach out, you’ll form a real connection. This is much more effective than yelling or bickering, which only leads to further distrust between the two of you. As Dr. Meyer’s says, one of you has to change first. As a parent, you’re likely going to be the one taking the initial step.In the episode, we cover:The origins of CRAFTThe concept of sobriety sampling for drug usersThe stigma in American culture that makes recovery difficultSpecific ways to talk to your child to ease tensionThe dangers of getting the wrong kind of treatmentEven more strategies to prevent underage drinking!Dr. Meyers is here to provide the answers you seek. He’s been researching this topic for over 40 years and has worked with families all over the world. With a...

Sean Grover, author of "When Kids Call the Shots", discusses the hidden psychology that leads teenagers to bully their parents and reals simple strategies you can use to regain control from your teenager if you find yourself getting bullied. Sean has identified three main reasons parents get bullied.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesTeen Guilt TripsEver completely forgotten something that you promised your teen you’d be there for? Maybe you were so busy at work that your kid’s soccer game totally slipped your mind. When you finally get a call from your kid, or realize out of the blue that, “Wait a minute, I’m supposed to be somewhere else right now!” you’ve already missed the whole thing entirely and feel awful. You’ve taught your kid to be accountable and to always follow through when they say they’re going to do something, yet how can you expect this from them if you can’t even do it yourself?It’s possible that your teen will be forgiving and say that it’s not a big deal—but probably not. If you’re dealing with a dramatic, hormonal teenager there’ll probably be some level of guilt and frustration placed on you. Aren’t teenagers supposed to be the irresponsible ones, not adults? Aren’t you always supposed to be there for them no matter what? In the moment, you might be willing to do anything to make it up to your teen—giving them a boost in their allowance, letting them have a later curfew, buying them a new phone. Sometimes bribery can be the easiest road to forgiveness. But maybe not the wisest.Feeling overwhelmed by guilt can cause you to give up your control. Furthermore, allowing your teen to make you feel inferior because of a mistake you’ve made can enable your teen to bully you. If you’re looking for the best way to deal with bullies, this episode is for you.This week on the podcast, we speak with Sean Grover to discuss the best way to deal with bullies who victimize their parents. He is the author of the award-winning book When Kids Call the Shots: How to Seize Control from Your Darling Bully and Enjoy Being a Parent Again. Sean holds workshops around the country and works privately with parents and teens to determine the best way to deal with bullies in whatever form they present themselves. He has mapped out the most common types of bullying that occur in families and has developed specific strategies for exactly how to get your teenager back under control.Why your Teen is Bullying YouSean states that to teens, bullying is not about being mean. Your teenager is bullying you in order to manipulate you and get what they want. He or she has realized that they can get things out of you by making you feel bad about yourself.Sean recounts a teen he worked with who was torturing his mom because she missed his piano recital. When Sean suggested the boy let his mom off the hook, he replied, "If I keep this up, I think I can get a new laptop." Before accusing your teen of being malicious for actions like this, think of where this reaction is coming from. In order to find the best way to deal with bullies, you must first reflect on what you’ve done to promote or enable this kind of behavior.Guilty, Anxious, and Do Everything Parent TypesIn his book, Sean discusses the best way to deal with bullies and three types of parents who often fall victim to such behavior: the Guilty Parent, the Anxious Parent, and the Fix Everything Parent.Problem:Guilty Parents blame themselves for their teen’s problems and try to fix them themselves. Their own insecurities often lead them to compare themselves to other parents and try too hard to make their kids happy. This often stems from bad experiences they had in childhood, such as parents who were abusive or too hard on them. Children can pick up on what is specifically making them feel guilty and take advantage of that to get what they want. If the Guilty Parent sees giving rules to their teen as a type of punishment this can worsen their guilt.Solution:For this type of parent, the best way to deal with bullies is to first identify what made you feel this way in the first place. You may view yourself as inadequate and therefore don’t have the confidence to stand up to your kid out of fear that they won’t like you for it. Sean states that these types of parents need to realize that teens need boundaries and it’s in their best interest to give that to them.Problem:Anxious Parents always see opportunities for failure and want to prevent it at all costs. These parents often rob their kids of discovering new things because they fear the unknown. Teens in this situation may feel that their parent isn’t giving them any freedom and as a result reflects rebellious or angry behavior back.Solution:The best way to deal with bullies in this situation, Sean explains, is to create a culture of talking through things before they happen. You can’t prevent all bad things from happening to your teen so it’s best to make sure they’re prepared. Anxious Parents must have conversations with their teen, asking them what they’d do in specific situations and talking through it together in a calm manner. Engaging teens in problem solving activities can ease the lack of control that has caused them to bully.Problem:Sean explains a Do Everything Parent as someone who can’t stand to see their teen struggle. Who’s always ready to service their kid and solve everything for them. Sean states that the frustration that comes with problem solving is what truly evolves a teen into a more mature person. When Fix Everything Parents interrupt the problem solving process, they are stunting their teen’s maturity.Solution:Sean suggests that the best way to deal with bullies in this situation is to stop interrupting any chance for your teen to struggle with a problem. Instead, he suggests highlighting their unique approach to solving things in a way that you wouldn’t.Types of Teen BulliesIn addition to parenting types, Sean discusses the best way to deal with bullies of different types. He specifically delves into the nature of defiant bullies, the type who want to prove that they’re right and you’re wrong. Sean points out that you’re not going to win with aggression. In this interview, he goes in depth about defiant bullying behavior that teens reflect towards their parents and how to counteract it. Sean also talks about the responsibility that parents have to recall what it was like for them as a teen in order to better relate and empathize with their children. He also offers up creative solutions and exercises you can use to identify teen aggression and how to positively channel rather than punish this behavior.Types of Teen BulliesIn addition to parenting types, Sean discusses the best way to deal with bullies of different types. He specifically delves into the nature of defiant bullies, the type who want to prove that they’re right and you’re wrong. Sean points out that you’re not going to win with aggression. In this interview, he goes in depth about defiant bullying behavior that teens reflect towards their parents and how to counteract it. Sean also talks about the responsibility that p...

David Allen, the author of "Getting Things Done", one of the best-selling business books of all time, explains how to get teens excited and motivated about their goals and productive as they pursue those goals. If you have a "lazy" teenager, you won't want to miss this one.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesIf your child isn’t living up to their full potential because they waste too much time on distractions, just imagine how much harder life will be when they have to manage adult responsibilities! Teens today must content with YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms that constantly vie for their attention. Activities like sports practice, club meetings, school applications, study time, and more can really add up. Fortunately, though, having a busy schedule prevent you from dealing with lazy teenagers if your teens learn how to manage their schedules effectively.Teens with an abundance of hobbies and responsibilities have more opportunities to explore their interests. However, it can be difficult to distinguish distractions from tasks that are worth pursuing. When teens get confused by this distinction, they may neglect their responsibilities and are often written off as being immature or lazy. And stress and distress for teenagers is on the rise, which can take away their motivation to complete even basic tasks.Without the right approach to balancing their workload, kids become easily overwhelmed in their developmental years and leave their parents dealing with lazy teenagers. First, they start staying up late at night doing work and might skip a few homework assignments to get some sleep. But poor time-management practices can easily snowball into a reoccurring bad habit. Without a dependable initiative to reach their goals, your child could resort to shutting down. They might even lose their vocation.To better understand dealing with lazy teenagers and boost their productivity, I spoke with David Allen, founder of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology and author of Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World. Here, he’s teamed up with two terrific co-authors and a handful of graphic designers to make his powerful productivity method more accessible to lazy teens.Imagine taking all the time-management skills you’ve learned through trials as an adult and apply it to a modern-day teenager’s perspective. That’s exactly what David has done here. HIs book has sold over a million copies, and its predecessor (geared towards adults) has sold 1.6 million copies, making him one of the most sought-after mentors for parents, teachers, and business owners.In this interview, David runs me through the super simple five-step method developed in his book for dealing with lazy teenagers. It’s shockingly easy to follow for such a robust system!To navigate the pressure of being overscheduled and overworked, David explains that dealing with lazy teenagers involves getting the stress (literally) out of the brain. Basically, it’s the practice of pushing information outside your brain so things don’t get so chaotic and overwhelming inside your brain. This allows teens to focus on what they’re doing without having to think too much about failing the test they’re studying for or being judged too harshly during their upcoming presentation. Here’s how it works:The first step in the GTD method is to immediately capture any incoming ideas or actionable thoughts that catch your attention. It could be that you have to send an email to a teacher, or you just remembered that movie recommendation you were supposed to look into. The point is, you need to get the idea out of your head and write it down so you don’t have to think about it anymore. This way the thought won’t distract you while you’re working on your current task. This is great tactic for dealing with lazy teenagers.By being present and making good moment to moment choices, teens can create time for the fun things they want to do. That’s why this first step is so valuable. Anyone can get bogged down without sufficient motivation to complete a task, but if your interests influence what you’re doing in the moment, you’re more likely to pursue the task with increased enthusiasm.According to David, dealing with lazy teenagers isn’t about magically getting your teen excited to do something they hate. It’s about how to help them figure out what they really want to be doing. If teens are able to organize their workload into manageable pieces, they’ll be able to get things done expeditiously.Let’s say your teen is interested in hosting a Halloween party. By using the first step of capturing ideas, they can create a list of things they need to do without dwelling on the pressure of a successful event. While completing their homework, they might jot down a quick reminder to pick up cups and streamers and then get back to the assignment at hand. When it’s time to address the Halloween party, they’ll be able to organize their ideas with more attention and detail.I was so lucky to talk with David about his methodology because he succinctly demonstrates how to apply it when dealing with lazy teenagers who don’t even know their interests yet. He says you can start by observing what your teenager is already doing. You can prompt them with questions like “Do you enjoy what you’re doing now? How can do more of that? When would you like me to check to see if you’ve reached your goal?” These questions, along with David’s other techniques, can help shift the scale of confrontation so that your teen takes control of their actions.David explains that by letting teens set the standard for what they want to achieve, they’ll be redirected to confront themselves about not meeting their goals. This helps parents dealing with lazy teenagers to affirm their child’s autonomy, letting them set the standard for what they want to achieve. This technique of redirection allows parents to motivate their teens without getting into a confrontation.In fact, a lot of our conversation had to do with this topic of redirection. Redirecting passions into careers. Redirecting wasted time into our personalized vocation. Redirecting hard work into being engaged and taking on a role in the driver’s seat. These kinds of exchanges can even shift your parenting approach to dealing with lazy teenagers so that it’s conversational and engaging.When people are gifted with a myriad of opportunities to explore, David’s five-step method is perfect for dealing with lazy teenagers. This is the time for your child to explore as many interests as possible so that your child can begin to invest in them. That’s what I find so encouraging about David’s approach: it’s inviting, and that can be especially useful during teenage years and early adulthood.Both parents and teens can benefit from David’s work and he’ll tell you exactly how you can implement his method today! In our interview, we also cover topics like:How to handle the stress of opportunity and manage the volume of possibilitiesHow the GTD frameworks goes beyond organization to give your teen purposeEngaging teens and their distractions vs. confronting themBalancing what you know with how to take on new interestsHelping your teen set some goalsHow to reduce risky behavior and build autonomyTalking with David was absolutely inspiring. His approach t...

Dana Suchow, founder of Do The Hotpants, discusses what parents need to know to discuss eating disorders with a teenager. She also explains how to connect with teenagers about exercise in a positive way, words you should absolutely avoid when talking about food, and a lesson in where negative body image comes from.Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment that works—delivered at home. Visit equip.health/talking for more information, and a free consultation.Full show notesIf no one takes care to combat eating disorders in teenagers, unhealthy dieting can lead to damaging long term health problems. In serious cases, malnutrition can lead to death.Does your teen seem uncomfortable about what they eat? Does your teen struggle to keep weight on? Do you even know what your teenager thinks about his or her body? These can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable questions, but it’s so important to ask them.The secretive nature of eating disorders in teenagers can make unhealthy dieting a deceptively difficult problem to identify and address.To be clear, having a teenager who struggles with body image or food consumption does not mean you are a bad parent! Billions of advertisement dollars have gone into convincing all of us that our bodies are ugly. Advertising companies know we buy more stuff when we feel bad about ourselves, so they use billboards and TV ads to train us to hate our own bodies. In this way, eating disorders in teenagers are the natural product of emotional marketing. While these ads primarily target girls, boys are affected, too.My special guest today believes that in just 10 to 20 years, advertising will put just as many boys at risk of developing eating disorders as girls. If this is true, then eating disorders in teenagers will soon be a more relevant issue for all parents, not just parents of girls. So what can parents do to combat a thriving industry that’s invested in teens hating their own bodies? I spoke with Dana Suchow to get an idea, and it turns out there is a lot that parents can do.Dana is the founder of DoTheHotpants.com, a website that she initially started as a fashion blog. Eventually, she transformed the website into a platform for people to safely share their own stories about body image and eating disorders. Having struggled with an eating disorder herself, Dana has personal experience on the matter. She knows firsthand how important it is to have conversations about a healthy understanding of body image.A Delicate Subject MatterEating disorders in teenagers can be an extremely sensitive subject to breach. They are very secretive and highly personal. Parents need to be very careful with how they approach this subject because even though you mean well, bringing it up in the wrong way can actually backfire.Dana remembers a personal example of when a conversation about her eating disorder went poorly. Dana’s roommate in college noticed how she was struggling to eat food. Her roommate vocalized her concern for Dana, but Dana remembers getting instantly defensive. She felt like her roommate was talking down to her, even though her roommate was really trying to help.Dana explains how people who struggle with eating disorders want so desperately to hide what’s going on. When a teen feels like their secret is being threatened, they can become fragile and defensive. Striking the right tone to navigate this conversation is tricky. What helps address eating disorders in teenagers most, Dana says, is that parents get on the same level as their teens.Getting on the same level means empathizing, something Dana believes parents need to focus on. Empathic words like, “I get it,” and, “you’re not alone,” mean so much to teens who struggle with an eating disorder. If parents share they also feel down about their body from time to time, teens might be more inclined to open up about themselves. On the other hand, their defenses will stay up if they sense you are mad, or disappointed, or ashamed.In order to understand eating disorders in teenagers, though, you’ll want to have a better awareness of the greater problem: uneducation.“Uneducating,” or Questioning Negative InputCurrently, we live in a world that is so fixated on thinness and youth. You can probably imagine the “ideal” body in your head! It’s the body represented on 99% of movie posters: a thin, young, white woman who has no disabilities. She has no body hair, perfect makeup, and the list goes on and on.We need to unlearn this!When we don’t have representation of all the ways girls can exist, we start looking at girls through a narrow lens. Dana believes that advertisements teach us there’s only one, narrow type of girl can be loved, which is related to her body type. The negativity your teen has towards certain body types (even her own), isn’t coming from her voice alone. Part of that voice is modeled after what she sees and hears represented in popular culture. This prejudice has been ingrained by marketing tactics for so long that we might hate any body that doesn’t look like the singular, narrow norm.However, you can’t shame women for trying to fit in. We live in a world that rewards people for fitting in, so instead of judging those who represent unrealistic norms, we should ask insightful questions about unlearning.For example, Dana references the movie Wonder Woman, a great movie in many ways, that also provides parents an opportunity to talk about unlearning the “normal” appearance of Hollywood stars.If you go watch Wonder Woman with your girls, you can ask them after the movie:“When did all the Amazonian women get electrolysis to get rid of their body hair? When did they all find the time to shave?”You want your child to learn that every woman deserves to fit in. This means questioning why not all women are represented in popular culture. Like with Wonder Woman, you can enjoy a movie and still question if it’s encouraging a culture that promotes eating disorders in teenagers.This is only one of a dozen different topics I went through with Dana!An Ongoing ConversationWhen discussing eating disorders in teenagers, there are so many angles, rabbit holes, and doors that lead to the next. We certainly couldn’t touch on every aspect of this discussion in one interview, but there is one thing Dana wants to make clear:Parents are not powerless when it comes to addressing eating disorders in teenagers!Eating disorders in teenagers is a delicate subject matter, but champions like Dana are working hard to help us parents learn more so we can help our kids. If you were to fill a book with everything we talked about in this interview, these would be the chapters:The un-shaming processAccepting the power of advertisements“Pulling back the curtain” on these industriesDestigmatizing “fat” bodiesIdolizing looks vs idolizing healthThe love-hate relationship with social mediaRedefining “overweight” and debunking the BMI (again!)Positive language around teen exerciseThe privilege of “clean eating”The scope of this problem is massive, but sculptable. If we’re going to protect against eating disorders in teenagers, we’re going to have to do the work! You can help do your part by giving this episode a listen! Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder tre...